For the further processing of continuously cast strips, it is necessary to cut the strip into appropriate pieces. The flame cutting machine, coupled with the strip (e.g., by means of a clamping device), is moved along at the casting velocity and cuts the strip being moved on a stationary roller bed by means of its cutting torch unit(s) which are moving in a crosswise direction.
Due to this transverse movement of the flame cutting unit during the simultaneous longitudinal motion of the machine, the resultant cutting path of the cutting torch unit runs obliquely over the roller bed. During the motion along this oblique cutting path, there is a constant danger that the roller bed, specifically the rollers that are in direct contact with the strip, are damaged by the cutting oxygen jet of the flame cutting units.
It is already known from West German Auslegeschrift No. 12 36 304 that this can be prevented by giving the rollers a smaller diameter relative to their circumferential surface on part of their length and by confining the path of the cutting tool over the breadth of the roller table to within the reduction of the roller diameter. Thus, a kind of "cutting line" is formed within the roller table, over which line the cutting tool moves and thereby avoids damaging the rollers.
A corresponding solution is also described in the West German Offlengungsschrift No. 25 35 950, according to which the cutting table has a gap, whose dimensions are chosen to be such that at the given maximum and minimum velocities of the cutting device, as well as of the workpiece to be cut, the cutting device is moving within this gap.
In this state of the art (West German Auslegeschrift No. 12 36 304 and West German Offlengungsschrift No. 26 35 950), it is consequently necessary to prepare the roller bed (formation of a cutting line/gap) in such a way that the cutting device will always be within a predetermined zone.